Based on the minutes of a meeting that took place in May 1977 between the Bremen Senator for Science and Arts Horst Werner Franke and the members of George Tabori's Theaterlabor, this article unfolds layers of significance in the director's adaptation of Franz Kafka's novella “Ein Hungerkünstler.” Specifically, I argue that the production— surrounded by controversy due to the actors’ decision to fast for forty days—represented an unanticipated extension of Kafka's story about the artist's predicament in society into the realm of Bremen politics, as it challenged traditional notions of theater and acting and referenced the hunger strikes of imprisoned German terrorists. While the issue of aesthetics was directly addressed in the meeting in a lengthy exchange about different notions of acting, the role of domestic terrorism remained an important subtext for the theater board's demand that the actors cease their voluntary food abstinence. No resolution of the conflict was reached. Rather, unwilling to give up the attempt to experience the hunger artist's ascetic quest, Tabori and his company prevailed in transferring the questions posed by Kafka's parable into the political reality of the day.